Bikini-clad vinyl nerdery, rap music, and assorted tomboyisms.

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I also would’ve given Ghosty the Lightbulb-I-Wanna-Cuddle-With award on account of that suit, and asked him if even he can figure out whether this is one of his or one of Bowie’s. Could go either way, yes?:

Silver magic ships you carry/Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane. Dennis’ spooky pale intense face is pleasing and trance-y just like that Pusha T flaming GIF, and he obviously knows how to dress, but I’d like to focus for a sec on his quality production work, please. Sixto Rodriguez – “Sugar Man.”

Ohmygodwhoisthisgirl; I want to buy her things and show her off in public.

Oh my god–good for you, mama:

(Outfit that I am barred from wearing in public due to body type and the unfairness of life, unless I want to look like a complete hooker. Hipless British girls out shopping have no such worries, however.)

• Bright Eyes has that new song called “Haile Selassie,” which is a problem, obviously. Hitchhiking back to Zion/Holding our tears as we flip the album/What if this leads to ruin?/You got a soul–use it. This kind of pretentiousness is only acceptable if you wear a metal facemask or an Elvis hair thingy, and then it’s somehow not pretentious but perfect, weird, and poetic instead. I maybe turn it up the damn song when I’m out driving and it comes on KCRW in spite of myself, though. I’m kind of a weak person. (it’s got a pretty melody and throbby guitar work, what can I do) It’s educational, too–All this despair forgiven/Rolling away on the Wheel of Sevens, Conor sings. The Wheel of Sevens, I learned, is a cosmological diagram, a Christian kind of choose-your-own-adventure regarding how to live, except all the adventures are about behaving nicely and not having sex. I was raised by glorious heathens in a weed den so I know little of the superstitious ways of Christians, but from a design perspective the thing is beautiful.

• Best eyes in the game: Sadat X, Andre 3000, Waka, Madlib, every Wu god, the brothers Thornton, F. Gibbs, Ty. It’s so cute when he tells Syd to be quiet about her romantic exploits. Aw.

• I thought Gucci was like 23 but he turned 31 last week! That’s some hard living, I guess. I also thought he was the most stylish man I had ever seen with my own two eyes until I saw this kid from an old Vice mag.

Then I saw this dude and I said to myself, OHH. And that’s where I’ve been ever since.

• Round and round/round we go said Tupac, whose name was on LA sports talk radio today for a hilarious reason. The Pac 10 is going to become the Pac 12, which of course is ridiculous and dumb (Colorado and Utah, you do nothing for me plus you’re nowhere near the Pacific). The Tupac Army is strong and well-manned, it’ll never die on the Internet; it’s got domain names locked down. Pac12.com is already taken by a Tupac fan, which is funny to me now but this saga will probably turn dark when the dude who runs it gets a huge payout to relinquish the name and he’ll just keep the lump sum instead of giving some to Afeni or donating it to Pac’s old high school. I will be rather annoyed and disappointed.

You don’t know me, just met me, you won’t let me, he continues in “Round and Round,” a song that is cute radio ear candy but is nowhere near as good as “Trapped,” best Tupac song EVER (oh god with the bassline of death that’s still bouncy at the same time. Unfortunately, “Trapped” doesn’t make sense in a post about rotundity) Break out or be clowned, he says. Get naked or leave. Ladies, we’ve all been there, but oh excuse me Pac, because earlierrrr you said you don’t want it if it’s that easy. Either he’s talking to 2 different ladies, each with her own established code of behavior (a librarian and a stripper), or the things that excite him sexually are really just that hard to pin down. This is difficult stuff for a woman. It causes quite the headache. And that is why I no longer date foxy shirtless rappers, thank you.

• Mambo! This mix was posted on sofritoUK, which is currently down but I’m hoping they just need to pay the bill and it’ll be back. A mambo mix is totally appropriate for a post about roundness and round things because of congas and timbales and hips, hips all day, nothing but hips, que bolá! The site has a track listing for the blues and mambo mix below but I didn’t get it while it was still available. I’m asking you to blindly accept it, this gift without song titles, because I have excellent taste and I wouldn’t lead you astray. I do remember there’s a song called “Turn Around Girl” almost at the end, which might mean Turn around so I can see your front, miss but it might mean Turn around so I can see what is happening back there. Either way, I’m feeling pretty confident. Whatever you like, boss–I got you.

Does mamboreally mean “voodoo priestess,” by the way? Let’s go with it because that’s pretty cool. I bet the priestess had amazing fat hips, so amazing they named a whole style of music for her which is my dream in life.

I just made a nice cotton dress with my own two hands and my sewing machine, and I decided to honor Pimp C with the title post. (Sorry, “Snitches Get Stitches”; you never had a chance)

Patti Jo – “Make Me Believe In You.” I thought about posting a song about sewing, or thread, or even completing a project. But in the end it came down, like always, to the old “walking down the street in a cotton dress” bass-drenched song with sassy female vocal, and this one probably has top 10 status in my heart. Not one note is sung ’til the first 2 and a half minutes go by, and it was written by Curtis Mayfield (you can tell when you hear those lyrics and get a feel for it, the whole vocal phrasing), and it makes me want to curl up in a ball because the universe is so wonderful sometimes I can’t take it. Don’t worry–I’ll delicately arrange my dress before curling up so nothing inappropriate is seen. Hi Mom!

(*you rack your brain for lyrics about ladies and half the songs are actually about cars.)

Georgia May Jagger proves that if you are 5’7” (model stats; it means she’s actually 5’5 1/2”) and blonde-highlighted, life is perfect. Lounge-y. Sunshiny. (like old OutKast instrumentals). If it weren’t for SWINE, that is.

Meet

me

on

the

fresh

train.

I love it all, this whole spread. And I have versions of everything here in my closet, except for that button-up Dior up there, which I wish I had because I would certainly wear it, shoulder ties and all.It’s cop catnip, though.Cops love me. My style of dress. My good posture. My skinny body, I guess. Thus, How can I continue to dress like this while keeping cops away is the most important topic in my life right now. I need help with it, like understanding Talib getting a distribution assist from Duck Down (???!?) and how to get Doomsy on as a keynote speaker at the next TED conference. Cops, they love me and I do not care for it (unless he’s a cool cop, the ones that only exist in movies, a realllll loose cannon with a fucking sweet car and a King Kong-sized ego like detective Alonzo Harris–call me!–or one who gets caught up like Brasco–CALL ME–or even Mr. Orange ’cause he kind of had a good heart plus he was a great storyteller).

There has to be some answer here. I would like to continue to be a dress-up babydoll, but I do not want to be visually patted-down by police officers every day when I get my coffee. (I live in the Rampart division and I work downtown, so what do you expect–the Starbucks at 2nd and Central is particularly thick with them) This is not my most organized set of sentences but basically what I mean to say is that just because that lady in line behind you is wearing some nice white linen shorts and an oxford shirt doesn’t mean she doesn’t prowl the Internet daily for new Curren$y stuff and old Dilla stuff. You and your stereotypes, I swear.

1. Things I would die without: the snare drum, Sennheiser headphones, Doom’s lyrics, stripper/librarian heels. Or I could just say “Stimulation in various forms, stimulation all day and night, and yet somehow soothing at the same time” and you’d know what I mean, you’d clearly realize how that’s a list comprised of snares and headphones plus ten thousand other things too. Stripper/librarian heels are the focus today, though. The ones above are called “Peep Show,” and I needed them so I bought them. (I would have died without them.)

Lately my life has been a whole lot of driving around town listening to Power 106 and old Kool Keith, dealing with grouchy people, and this frequent uneasiness, this strong feeling like I need more impractical footwear. As illustrated by the photos above, all those radio plays of “Throw it in the Bag” had their intended effect–THANKS, LOSO–except in my life’s version I play the role of both the kept woman and the keeper of the woman since I buy my own heels, which is obviously what Steinem had in mind for me as a postpostpostfeminist human. Sorry, Gloria. I’m I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, though, do you know what that means? DO YOU? I cook, I clean, I never smell like onion rings. Somethingsomething, flat-screen TV, good credit, blah blah.

That ankle strap is what sold me, lookin like one of Saturn’s rings. Just look at that ankle strap, darling. Phillip Lim, child of immigrants, Kanye-approved designer, yet somehow still Logan-approved designer, has crafted these for the discerning stripper/librarian in your life. They are 5-inch-heeled maryjanes of Italian leather, a deep red shade that Barneys calls “bordeaux,” which recalls, I don’t know, the grapes in my backyard vineyard that I lovingly tend before I go to the library in the morning and that I lovingly tend when I return from Magic City at night?

Phillip thinks he disappointed his parents, who came from Cambodia and wanted him to be a doctor. They don’t understand fashion, because, really, what’s to understand. Frivolity and sex and overspending. Grand folly. Lack of practicality (teetering around on 5-inch spindles shortens calf muscles), but good-looking and well-crafted things for the body. Kanye-approved shoes on Barbie doll label princesses who have master’s degrees and nerdy blogs. “I’m shoppin right now, my ass off/You home writin some bullshit literature,” Kool Keith said. Dude I can do both, though. I can do both, Mr. Thornton. That ankle strap represents my life’s constant duality–the Dewey Decimal System and Toomp beats, new glasses (finally) and a thousand bathing suits. Before setting my alarm to wake me up to some Waka in the morning, I read every night in bed. There are Chanel and Diane vonFurstenberg ads among the poems and essays in the Paris Review. Also contained therein is a story about Brazilian jiu–jitsu, an art form that teaches that a small and weak person can suddenly turn into something like a big and strong person using proper technique and leverage. The pleasures of duality, that’s the point I’m trying to make here. Oh and have I mentioned that ANKLE STRAP. Take another look and then tell me I shouldn’t have bought em.

In daydreams my American Gangster character is Eva, Miss Puerto Rico, who loves Frank at the beginning, and she especially loves her idea of who Frank is (classic Logan), and then 2 months into their marriage she finds herself on her knees, scrubbing blood out of the alpaca rug* and he’s screaming at her and she’s thinking Fuck what did I get myself into. That’s probably my fate, given my taste for masculinity topped off with smarts and a strong commitment to hustlenomics and an adeptness at charming my pants off (or my dress off, as the case may be, or even my black-shorts-and-Boy-Scout-belt-and-stripper/librarian-heels get-up).In life I am the good girl. Even in daydreams I am the good girl. But these make me feel like I’m Ginger in Casino. At the beginning, you know—pre-haircut, pre-tailspin. Throwing the chips in the air, moving in slow motion. She wanted to stay hustling her little heart but Ace insisted on bribing her into wifehood and momhood. Wives and moms are boring, though. Remember how Malice saidI even went by the book at first/Until I realized 9 to 5 wouldn’t quench my thirst. In response, I believe Ginger would say Sounds about right.

2.The ignition switch in our bodies helps spot and treat cancer. Fine, lovely, good job science and scientists, but my ignition switch can spot (and only responds to) honey-voiced Chicago singers with possible latent homosexual tendencies who are always struggling with that ol‘ divine v. secular tug of war. The demands of the heavenly v. those of the flesh. (Fleshly delights usually win; I hope I didn’t give that one away for you all.) There was this one time I met this dude, he was all up in my grill/tryna get me to a-ho a-tellll and I liked his honesty and especially the way he pronounced “hotel,” there was food everywhere; it was fantastic. My uh, engine revved. Except he wore Celtics gear, which was hard for me to wrap my head around.

3.Waka can really sometimes sound like an upper-register Rick Ross, voice-wise. By that I mean Rawwsss 15 years and 100 lbs ago, but they both have that raspy thing occurring in their vocal chords. “Knock Em Down” is this new song by something called Grafh featuring Waka but Grafh should know that when you put Waka on the hook all the girls are going to focus on Waka in their blog posts about that new Grafh song. Grafh’s only noteworthy moment is at 01:19–“I’m a rock chopper, with a straight razor/And I’m the type to kick your daddy in the pacemaker.” Cardiac-regulation-equipment raps are good, and they’re funny. But oh, Waka! He has power. He makes me claim FETTI GANG a couple times a day. Waka can end a verse by hollering his own name (03:48). And he’s somebody who can claim the states of both Georgia and New York, which is the rap equivalent of being a dually-skilled athlete. Brag rights.

4. “Oh Word” was my cutesy etymology feature that I used to do all the time on here. Bikini enthusiasts didn’t care for it, but I loved it. It’s back today, and the word is SNARE.

snare (2).“string across a drum,” 1680s, probably from Du. snaar “string,” from same source as snare, above.

The appropriateness of this word’s origin is startling and dope. Jabo Starks, Uriel Jones, Jimmy Diamond from the Ohio Players. Zigaboo from the Meters. They’ve caught me–ensnared me, really–in their respective drumkit nets.

5. I used to do my “Lesbatronic Moment” feature a while ago too, which bikini enthusiasts really liked a lot. I should show you the emails. On a related note, fact #5 for today is: Claudia Cardinale. She exists. But is she the stripper or the librarian? Ginger or Eva? Or is she both, a perfect combination of the two, like the woman I hope to be one day? I like Claudia’s features, and I have fondness for her based on the similarities I imagine we share. If you have big brown eyes people treat you like the good girl; once they see you have those hips they start to make a playlist for you of Drumma Boy’s greatest hits so you can hand it to the DJ when you take Stage 2 at Magic City. Duality.

Bonus fact (6):“The only person who never got ejected from an NBA game was Jesus.” – Ronald W. Artest, Jr., who would know, obviously. Ron the lovable badass is everywhere except inside the perimeter these days. Still love him, though. I love kittens and “6’7”” too, because I’m only human after all.

What can I do at this point other than say They try to Ron Artest me/They gon have to arrest me, in Gucci’s words (I had to quote him here due to my Brick Squad and Fetti Gang affiliations). I still keep it Berkeley too, though (I feel like Ron Artest/Championship swag).

Now I’m in the limelight due to the fact that I rhyme tight, and also because of my vast knee-high/thigh-high sock collection. These pics are from that one day when Biggie informed my outfit choices, and I strutted around in my red-and-black lumberjack and my pixellated-Biggie-face slouchy tank top, and nobody dared fuck with me. WE DID IT, BROOKLYN.

I miss this individual and his solid technique of verbal intercourse. And yes, my wistful memories and corresponding photograph are appropriate in this post because houndstooth is a form of plaid. Fall back, pattern police.

“Livin’ Astro.” When rap’s Sun Ra tones the weirdness down, he has a Chris Wallace sort of lyrical bent. This could be a Biggie verse, no?

I got my shades, big rock star compared to ElvisSignin autographs for rappers, while girls move they pelvisWrite songs quickly, for Elton John or Lionel RichieCall up my butler, get clothes washed by the maidIvory soap, this is clean, feel like CascadeI count the bills, roll to Detroit in Sedan DeVillesI throw my skully on, big robe like Marvin GayeStep in the front row, primetime I move your wayBudweiser Fest soundcheck, demanding more respectI come correct through the Metro, and turn y’all petrolI’m up here early bitin donuts sippin on espresso.

Isaac Hayes displays how stunting is, in fact, a habit.That is all.

Just found out they fucking play Pavement at Urban Outfitters. Not counting the fun I had singing along in my head when I walked around, this was a bad experience. My stress level really suffers because of these kinds of daily intersections of commerce and musical purity. Who cares if the 15-year-old next to me is hearing Pavement on account of shopping in a store headed by a conservative capitalist entrepreneur? She’s 15, and it’s Pavement, and this means that the music will seep into her and inform all of her choices in life. She might not hear it otherwise, until years later when Natalie the roommate plays it for her during freshman year at UCSB. My mom says it’s bad for me, all this mental anguish. But she also says that my sassy mouth is the reason I’m unmarried, so what does she know. Look at Steve there, though. That’s a pretty nice haircut (har!). I love the purple v-neck, too. Fashion, baby.

This.That is all.

If you can rap like this, and we all know you can rap like this, how come you don’t rap like this all the time? There’s the crushing grind of the rap game, the pressure of feeling pressured. I know the work won’t always be sublime. I have a tiny bit of sympathy. But overall, I’m tired of the games and the distracting sidework, Nasir.

I’d rather die in a box than live safe in witness protectionGotti was a racist, but he still get praisesWe don’t give a fuck—gangster is gangster.

Abbey Lee Kershaw has that gap-toothed, tiny-facial-featured beauty that I will just never be able to master. It’s frustrating. Fashion loves skinny and white, and I’m both of those, but sadly, fashion does not care for hips and that’s why my modeling career peaked when I was 12, then plummeted and landed with a resounding thud. I have confidence that I could pull off something like the look in this photo, though, because I can master nakedness under a plaid button-up, I can master having an adorable bellybutton, and I sure as hell can master a bored expression in front of the camera. This picture is oddly sexy and I can’t understand why, although it’s that criterion that generally applies to anything sexy. My point is, just please, someone: manipulate an electronic image of me, and give me cartoon antlers.

The Great Typo Hunt has been all over NPR, and the concept is kind of cute–these 2 guys who get little to no ass embarked on a journey to fix all egregious misuses of grammar in signs, ads, and articles. They then wrote a book about their, uh, adventures. I’m kind of like these guys, except with sloppy rap songwriting and production. I see it and I have to call it out; I’m on a mission from God. Maybe one day I’ll write a book about it, and then you’ll all be sorry you ever made fun of me.

Oh look, here’s our first example. That awful Game and his buddies Swizzy and Jay Elec (whose presence here confuses and upsets me) have made a song called “Higher,” which is bad and which flips and bounces Bob Marley’s “Iron Lion Zion” incorrectly. “I’m gonna be higher,” they believe the chorus goes–except somebody didn’t pay attention to the fact that the song is called “Iron Lion Zion,” and there is no mention of the word “higher” in there. It sounds like “higher” because Swizz, I guess, cannot understand Jamaican patois, but all he had to do was consult the title of the song he chopped up and looped. This is just lazy songwriting, and more proof that the best thing Swizz Beats ever did was play hypeman to DMX on Chappelle’s Show. That’s where he excelled.

Ciccone Youth!

Mike Watt is never not lumberjackin’, sartorially speaking. Always with the flannel button-ups, that one. But you know, you’re in San Pedro, you got the onshore flow, it’s overcast. Dress in layers. They did a piece about him in the LA Times over the weekend that was entertaining and delightful. His feelings about Iggy Pop and, more importantly, BASS, are summed up below. Watt will always be the same, even with creaky bones and gray hair, just like Adam Yauch.

“Iggy’s a great cat, as a music person, but he actually knows a lot about culture. He’s very intelligent. I’ve learned so much about being a better bass player from that guy. There’s these guys that don’t operate machines, they have different perspectives of the sound; they’re more like conductors, almost like a bridge to the people. So they can help you, especially with bass, because it’s kind of mysterious how bass works. It’s not just a guitar. It’s a weird thing, kinda like grout between the tiles.”

First of all, this is just an excellent photograph. It’s full of joy and movement. Who knew Jehovah’s Witnesses could swagger so convincingly.

Second, it’s MJ’s birthday. That’s why “Human Nature” was all over popular radio today, even though they should’ve been playing “The Way You Make Me Feel” (late-’80s MJ), “Say, Say, Say” (early-’80s-underrated-pop-duet-banger MJ), “You Haven’t Done Nothing”* (mid-’70s-backing-Stevie-Wonder-with-his-brothers MJ), or “I Wanna Be Where You Are,” from the heartbreakingly-innocent-face era of MJ. OH, or “It’s Great to be Here.”

“You take out the issue of white women and replace it with the issue of religion. That’s my story!” – Muhammad Ali, after seeing The Great White Hope

There are so many victims of time and circumstance in my country’s history, but it really seems like young pugilists from certain racial and socioeconomic groups seem to constitute an inappropriately large amount of this group.

Mr. Jack Johnson of Galveston had fist-related acumen, was of African descent, and enjoyed the fleshly delights of the prized white female. Since it was the early 1900s, this meant that things would not turn out well for him. Back then, my people held some truths to be self-evident, including that all men are created equal, except if it’s a black man who makes white men look bad by ripping the heavyweight championship out of their hands, and then that same black man pours lemon juice into their facial cuts by having sex with white ladies.

But over the years, there’s been a swelling of good intentions among good people who’ve noted the injustice in sending Johnson to prison on some Mann Act charges. We all want Johnson to receive a presidential pardon–last year, I was amazed to find out that John McCain was a major supporter in this movement. We’re still waiting; it’s in Obama’s hands now. And I’m proud to say that almost all the skinny bearded young white men who live in my neighborhood have heard of Johnson, thanks to that Mos supergroup and the popularity of his likeness on t-shirts. The one above is the best I’ve seen yet (even though that collar is so high and weird–but maybe it’s just this particular photo), and part of the profits from its sale goes to PBS for the funding and production of wonderful things like the annoyingly prolific Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness.